Absolutely gotta have the 10ft pole, tomb of horrors is rough but not as hard as they made it seem. Just expect everything to not be as it seems. Side note tomb of annihilation was a cake walk compared to this.
You have to realize that this was created by Gary Gygax because his friend was bragging that he couldnt create a dungeon that could kill his character.
Seems player complain so much about rolling dice, but their expectations were so far off. Expecting to just be murder hobos. The skill monkey started off staring at the floor but they don't really investigate or even try to figure out puzzles. Just went into this wanting to fight huge monsters.
It’s easy to create a dungeon that can kill any character. “You walk into the dungeon? Cool, your character dies.” And that’s pretty much what Gygax did here. Don’t get me wrong, I think I would enjoy the puzzle of this dungeon. I’m very very patient when it comes to figuring out clues and don’t give up easily. But scripted insta-death just doesn’t mesh well with puzzle-solving imo.
Because just like your brother Gary Gygax wanted to torture his players for his own twisted amusement, hoping that by making your day miserable their day could be just a little brighter, filling their empty void of a soul in the hopes to one day be what they see and torture...human. O O O O R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R they would though it just be a funny prank.
It is honestly more like 85% having played Gygax modules before. His approach to tricking and challenging player characters is pretty consistent and you can usually anticipate the Gygaxisms in his adventures after a few games. Things like always cutting open the beast monsters you fight because there is probably treasure in their stomachs, always looking up at the ceiling before entering a room to see what horror is lurking there, carrying a 10 foot pole and a bag of ball bearings to trigger traps in any corridors or openings. His modules shaped how we played in 1st and 2nd edition. Players who have never played a Gygax module are going to have a REAL HARD TIME with Tomb of Horrors because they are not going to be thinking like someone who knows to look for the Gygaxisms. There were also different mechanics in place. Like the doorway behind the plaster on the wall - elves and such just get an automatic roll to possibly detect hidden doors. So, you know, not updating it for 5E means a lot of it does not make sense anymore.
Guys, I started playing D&D in 1982. This adventure (we called them "modules" back then) was already legendary when I started playing. Gygax wrote this as a one shot for Origins 1 (IIRC). It was designed to kill players, pure and simple. It was never really designed to be "fun" or to incorporate in a campaign, as far as I know. Yep, my group back then went through it, using the 1st edition rules, and I'm pretty sure most of us died. I *think* our DM just pretended the whole session never really happened and we continued on with our campaign. Thinks for bringing back some memories.
Actually, there's more to the story. He pulled ToH out of his personal homebrew version of Greyhawk that was never published for the public to consume (i.e. not the version of Greyhawk that you and I know and love, it's from his personal version that he played at his home table with his players), and he wrote it for his personal home group of players because this is the kind of content they (i.e. his players) enjoyed; so he gave them what they liked, just like a good DM is supposed to do, rather than think it would be too mean to do to them. Give them what they want regardless of what you initially or anyone else on the outside looking in thinks, because if your players are having fun, then you are too. Try it once or twice if they ask for something a little more challenging or deadly, and if they don't like it, tone it down a notch or two until you hit the mark; or you can just never do that again. That's the hard part about being a DM, because you want to cheer for your players, but you unfortunately have to play as the enemy; and the enemy wants to survive as well. His personal home group of players enjoyed really deadly, meat grinder, heavy laden with traps, puzzles and tricks (i.e. tricks, for example, would be like the walls of mist, or the lever when pulled makes someone fall into a pit), dungeons and adventures that was as similar to real life as one could get while still remaining fantastical in nature. That's why there's no saves for some of the traps, because for example, the pit traps are 10ft. x 10ft. rather than the normal 5ft. x 5ft.; put simply, he applied the rules of reality to the fact that the extra 5ft. wouldn't allow for a chance to save because the PC wouldn't be close enough to a ledge to grab a hold of.
I too am an 80s dnd guy. I think the problem is that ToH was built with 1e characters in mind and can't hold up against a party of 5e OP characters. 1:1 a 5e Barb, Monk, and Rogue would make short work of their 1e counter-parts. I mean, an AD&D Barb would have no magic items, because they eshewed and mistrusted magic; and I don't remember them having a damage mitigating ability. Also, back then we had to make maps on paper. The dm described the rooms as we proceeded and we had to draw it. I think that increased player buy in. I can say, having played on VTTs, I got a lot less distracted back then than I do now. So this, maybe the original dungeon crawl, was more enjoyable under those circumstances.
“DM against the players” is exactly how old D&D really was. This was also originally labeled as “The Thinking Man’s Dungeon”, implying that it’s about the puzzles, not just combat. That said, I think most of the “fun” comes from the collective trauma from experiencing this.
My original DM who taught me how to play in 2nd edition, describe Dungeons & Dragons to me as DM versus the players and players versus the dms. And I remember flat-out asking him, but isn't the point of the game, any game for everyone involved to have fun? And he basically told me that it was fun. As crazy as it sounds, to this day that man is both the best and worst DM I have ever had in my life. He taught me everything I knew and got me hooked on this game, and it's what allowed me to develop my own play style and home brew. But on the flip side I don't know if I would ever want to play in another one of his campaigns
@@zenketski So, was he only good because he has awoken the flame of the dragon within you, or were there actual advantages at the table? Like, what fun moments came through that mindset?
@@Jorvard he had some legitimately fun campaigns and some legitimately fun moments. But it always felt like he was just waiting to Catch You Slippin. Maybe now that I'm older, it would be more fun, or at least easier to not die. Kind of imagined it like Dark Souls. It can be really frustrating at first, but when you succeed you really felt like you earned it.
Technically, this is the best way for a villain to guard their tomb (even without instant death): Just make it annoying. Impossible to proceed, a bunch of minor setbacks, and a very easy way to leave. Unless Acererak was a campaign villain that you had a longstanding history with and needed to slay, any normal person, even an adventurer, would realize this isn't worth it.
@@bradbutler89 Well technically you could beat the dungeon with a single level 1 character. Also back in 1st edition every GP you took home with you would also give you an XP point.
Millie: I ritual cast Identify on the altar. DM: It's enchanted with Lightning Bolt and Fireball. Millie: Do I know how it's triggered? DM: If you touch it. Me: Identify is a touch spell. He was touching it for 10 minutes.
the tomb of horrors is so bullshit that you have to let the players pull some bullshit of their own. So even if Jacob noticed this he probably wouldn't care.
"There is no save for knocking them prone" Actually, knocking someone prone is a contested strength check against the opponents strength or dex. Barbarians can just do that as a bonus action, they don't automatically succeed.
Credit to Spencer for gutting out the game. Once she lost her stuff, I could see her Give A Sh!t leave her eyes (01:42:30). She then spent two more hours being a good team mate and helping where she could. What a hero! (truly!) That being said, her character was the best one to lose all her stuff. Who else is as powerful, when naked, as a monk? She still would have been a force to be reckoned with - if there were any combat to be had in this scenario.
And for uptting up with the dude in the middle, CONSTANTLY cutting her of and hugging her spotlight. Half of the video in, and i couldnt stand it anymore.
The best class that I have seen run through this dungeon when watching other players play through it when I run it for players is a pure shadow monk build or a pure theif build rogue. Just keep that in mind if a DM ever wants to run this for you. Just be cautious and stay, if possible, away from any tricks and always look for other options for solutions to the problems you are faced with. Traps are detectable, puzzles can be solved, but tricks no one can beat. And there are both mechanical and magical tricks in ToH. An example for a mechanical trick would be the one near the entrance when you pull the lever (i.e. it actually doesn't trigger when you stand on it, that's why it's not a trap, because you willingly do it to yourself but gives you an unexpected result of falling into the 30ft. pit, no spikes by the way, just falling damage, so yeah, it was ran a little incorrectly, but the DM was correct, you do have to juggle a lot of information with this dungeon, so I don't blame him for it, and it is also actually the 10ft. by 10ft. area north of the real trap where the door is just south of it, so that when a PC tries to jump over it they fall directly into the real trap just south of the lever trick pitfall). And an example of a magical trick would be the walls of mist. P.S. The first wall of mist is both a trick and a puzzle combined. If you do it correctly, it will transport you to a room just north of the second long corridor with all the spheres.
@@KamiRecca It happens in a lot of their games. You can see her get frustrated with it sometimes. Logan did it constantly in water deep. It was possibly in character but still. And her hubby ignores her a lot when DMing. But that could be that he is bad at multitasking and only the louder players get through.
When Spencer showed up on Jacob's webcam, I was very confused. "What. how did she. are they just sitting next to each other? Is EVERYONE actually there in person, but in separate rooms playing online?" Then I remembered they're married and live together.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Totally gonna use this inspiration. Imma have a pair of Twin brothers, one is Kevin McCallister, the other is the brother from The Good Son. O.o
This was specifically a competition module, i.e. it was run as a contest at a convention. No one was supposed to actually beat the dungeon; it was a case of "Whoever gets the furthest in before everybody dies wins." At the end there's Acererak himself to bat cleanup just in case a group gets super lucky and makes it that far; if the DM plays him right he's going to wipe the floor with any reasonably leveled party (he can basically eat up to 8 souls, and if that's not enough to wipe out the party he just teleports the survivors hundreds of miles away). My brother bought this module way back when to play in 1st Edition AD&D, read it, said "this doesn't look fun at all" and so we never used it.
I decided "I've never played or watched D&D, time to check out what it's all about" and this is the first video I clicked on. I'm two hours in, and I get the strong impression most campaigns are different.
Very different. This has an interesting origin that you can read about in various comments here. It was originally created in a drastically older variant of DnD and has gone through several changes to accommodate the newer editions/mechanics. Most sessions are about rp or combat now, less so worrying that the dungeon is trying to actively kill you. For the right group however this and other similar puzzle esque dungeons can be fun
Hahaha, this is like the worst example of D&D (Jacob and crew are fun, but this particular dungeon is deliberately designed to be frustrating and kill everyone - its a big f you to the players - hence why its infamous).
i love how little effort jacob is putting into the description and npcs ljkdflkjhglfdkj really drives home how absolutely done he is-- go girl, give us nothing
Yea by the end he's just telling them where to go next basically and it doesnt help. Thats what annoys me. The DM can literally tell you what each room contains and you can still die.
@@gabevenderdahl1642 That's how old school games were played by default. A sandbox where players sometimes left to go back to town for months at a time. Henchman were also expected. Youd sometimes even leave after completing a floor in the dungeon, level up elsewhere, and come back at higher levels.
Me and a few friends decided to run this RAW with level 20 gestalt characters and everyone decided to go for combat min/maxing so about 30 minutes and 2 rooms later, everyone had quit out of frustration
sounds like my group, when i made a 3 room, 2 hallway dungeon, with 4 mobs turns out, they can't aim for shit. and no one had darkvision for a cave. they new it was a cave setting some times I wonder why I invited them
@@wickederebus Darkvision is an inherent racial trait...characters can't just typically acquire it to prepare for a cave (without crazy magic help), why not expect them to bring light sources like torches/lanterns instead?
@@futuza It's been 3 years now, but here. because I expect one guy to always appeal to his fetish for playing dwarves. I expect another guy to appeal to his fetish for lesser played/non standard races, which typically have dark vision. And for another guy, he can't be bothered to think things through at all.
@@wickederebus Sounds like a group in desperate need of a session 0 where expectations can be met, discussed, agreed upon, etc. since apparently they're not meeting any of yours. But maybe somethings changed since 3 years?
@@futuza not really no. The dwarf still does Dwarf things. The "my special character is special" guy still does that. The idiot still does idiot things. And I still suffer.
There are two reasons for this adventure. It depends which way you look at it. Meta, it was an adventure designed to challenge players not the characters. In plot terms, it is a soul mill for the Demi lich.
The reason why this sucks: this was created for the people most experienced with old D&D. The concept of DM vs player is definitely more in older editions, but D&D back then was definitely more of a mental exercise for people who like math & problem solving. Old D&D was extremely dungeon-based and Gary’s players were veterans of typical dungeon environments. Putting this dungeon in 5e is an extreme amount of whiplash because 5e is drastically different than the original game. In older games 10 ft poles, and other equipment types were used to suss out traps, keep in mind, the deletion of your equipment can be an issue, but these older editions used a substantial amount of encumbrance (variant encumbrance now was viewed as a lighter substitute to the typical in 2e so I can’t imagine what it was like in the edition prior) so there’s an extremely good chance that you still have supplies on the outside. It’s a setback, but definitely not career ending. I can see the gap in playstyle by the way that they entered into the dungeon. This playstyle isn’t fun for many newer players since rp>>>>puzzles to them, but in older editions you’d never just walk straight in, especially if you know that this is a dungeon made by a lich. You’d have your 10 ft poles out checking the ground for pits, you’d send in your familiar first, you’d bring a bag of flour to see airflow. Nobody would walk into the same room at the same time unless somebody (the thief usually) had already figured out that it’s safe. This also usually meant that person had first pick at loot. This game is supposed to be something that could be beaten by almost any level of players (except for the combats) so long as they’re diligent and go in thinking: this entire thing is meant to kill me my mind has to be firing on all cylinders if I want to get out of this alive. Also in older editions, while some would call this metagaming, I call it playing a game, the skill rolls took a backseat to clever ideas & planning because your stats & abilities weren’t intended to be a straitjacket.
It should also be said that some of its conventions also weren't unusual for its time. "I just kill you" was not that rare in the adnd days (In fact I believe there was a mimic who just did that. If you fell for the mimic it just kills you no save), effects that just destroy all your equipment were not THAT rare (well, more rare than just killing you), and the idea that dungeons had to make perfect sense wasn't really invented yet so dungeons that just had a hodgepodge of completely antagonistic-to-eachother creatures was the norm. . The interesting thing I find in adnd though... If something is an obvious trap, it was usually an obvious trap and they often had no mercy on you if you fell for it. As well while you had skills, most dungeons had some aspect you would have to solve yourself.
I believe in the original book for this dungeon it says its written to challenge the players and not the characters and that outright metagaming is both encouraged and required, not sure if they left that part in for the 5e remake
Exactly. I see this with a lot with younger players. They look at their class features and rules as a menu of their limits, not as just box of crayons of what they can do (but are not limited to). Not to mention, 1e d&d players did tend to bring along henchmen, hirelings, and others (my players tended to utilize captured Kobolds that were forced to wear 50 lbs backpacks so they'd trigger pit traps and pressure plates;-) to do a bit of the experimentation for them or just for general support. System mastery also tended to be a bit higher as well, where a lot of players in 5e tend to focus on damage output. And spellcaster players are even more prone to that outlook now since they no longer have to husband their resources as carefully as they did in prior editions (a wizard with a fireball fetish still screams noob to me tho;-). That said, the Tomb has probably never been easier given the 5th edition ruleset & options. It still definitely is not for everyone.
Nionivek I love wizard utility spells, but I’ve rarely played with DMs that make challenges that cannot be solved without magic, and since games rarely go beyond 7th-8th level in my groups I just can’t spare the spell slots to use many non-combat spells
High-level thinking: "I'll walk down the hallway carefully and use my winged boots if there's a pit trap." Low-level thinking: "I pick up some of the rubble we cleared and start throwing pieces down the hallway to see if anything happens."
That last room was badly administered (@3:18:30). The gas is in the north-south room. The juggernaut was in the 4x4 room. It wasn't hiding someplace. The characters that fall asleep and are not helped out of the way are crushed when it eventually moves. Their chance to save (live) was the sleep gas save. That's no different than a lethal poison, the death is just deferred and allows other players to drag them back to safety. If the characters get into the 4x4 room they will see the juggernaut and can get out of it's way if/when it starts moving. Honestly, the way 5th edition is generally played does nothing to prepare players for this sort of dungeon. Like one of the players said, your character means little in this dungeon. Your play-style, wits, and experience are what matters here - and a good bit of luck.
What I find funny is that from a character perspective this dungeon is flat out NOT worth it. You would expect such a dungeon to set you for life, but any adventurer group collectively has more treasure than this dungeon.
Not even a single spell scroll above FIFTH level, and it's made for level TWENTY characters. You get 100,000 gp black opal, you get a 50,000 and a couple thousand gold pieces of other stuff. So it's a decent chunk of money, but it's NOT worth it.
Moral of the story. Players that love puzzles, are good t solving them, and pay meticulous attention to detail and are through will probably love this dungeon. This is a dungeon for the kind fo people that love escape rooms and learn how to solve the Rubix cube. As a DM I would make sure that every player had hard copies of every riddle and diagrams of every puzzle. Its very hard to do these things with just verbal descriptions. How do you defeat invincible characters? Make the characters not matter as much as the player's choices.
No no see that's the thing that's not it... What puzzles were there to solve? What clues were there that could actually help you get past them? So many traps are just fuck you your dead BS with no indication or hints as to that's what they are... How can you know the juggernaut will insta-kill you if you go the wrong way? How do you know what the right way is? You don't. It's all trial and error but the error is instant death. You either must guess correctly through every trap to the end (unlikely) or die. There is no big brain 100 play that gets you through this. It's all trial and error.
@@greatclubsandwich5612 It doesn't though. It waits at least 10 minutes waiting in that top room. What SHOULD have happened there is that the 2 non asleep should have seen it in the 20/20 room and noped the f back out. Then the only penalty would have been the annoyance of her being asleep for 10-20 min.
This is the kind of dungeon I'd love to play. My instinct on dungeons is always to start throwing rocks through doorways and banging on the walls looking for hidden doors and weak spots.
As an aspiring DM, this DEFINITELY emphasized the importance of in-game hints for puzzles. Finding out the method of the archway sounds simple, but the entire rest of the dungeon seems to punish a simplistic approach, so no wonder the players didn't just assume "the obvious." Just seeing the visible frustration on the players' faces before the first hour wad up would have given me an anxiety attack!
HOT TAKE: I believe 'the intention' was meant to be a rotating door of characters. If you go into it looking forward to what ridiculous way you might die, this dungeon stands out as one of the funnest, most ridiculous, good time one shot dungeons out there. If you take beloved characters in there, or if you want it to run like a standard dungeon, you're going to have a bad time. Embrace the Horror.
Along those lines, what a lot of people are missing is this dungeon was a test of the players, not the player characters. Running head first into this dungeon’s challenges while rolling dice to beat them will kill every party that tries it, which is why the level of the party and their equipment isn’t a factor. This group was just blindly testing every button, portal, and room they came across because they assumed their character dice would save them from any bad decisions they made. That assumption is the deadly one of this dungeon.
This would be a lot less painful if the DM added "they light up one after another" to the stones on the arch. Which is how I thought it was meant to be seen, like Simon Says, instead of them all lighting up at the same time
Yeah, I had the same thought. I think the answer to the puzzle was lost in the description as written, because it doesn't explicitly say they light up in that order, they're just described in that order. Assume the DM is reading verbatim here, so it's a case of lost in translation rather than anything the players are missing. It doesn't even say, "x lights up, then y lights up, then z" just "x glows yellow, y glows orange, z glows blue" with no indication that they didn't light up simultaneously.
I came to the comments section to look for this exactly 👆🏻 Jacob made it sound like they all just light up simultaneously 😅 they could have possibly made it a lot faster if it was described that way 🤷🏼♂️
It actually still wouldn't help because in the Tales from the Yawning Portal description of the archway it says they light up yellow then orange then blue but the answer to the puzzle is yellow then blue then orange "The stone archway before you is filled with a veil of thick vapors. The stones on either side of the base and the key stone protrude slightly from the stones around them. As you move to within touching distance, the left-hand base stone begins to glow yellow, the right-hand base stone orange, and the keystone seven feet above blue." "Nothing will cause the vapors to clear, nor will any sort of magic allow sight into the area, until the glowing stones are pressed in the proper sequence: yellow, blue, orange. If this is done, the vapors disappear, and the path appears to go eastward. "
The real reason there's so much legend around it is that it was built and existed long before it was officially released. It was "Gary's Dungeon", and it would only be whipped out at meet-ups and cons (or the analogue of what a convention would be back then). The intent was that everyone would talk up their incredible, amazing characters at these meetups, so they would then be met with this player-killer dungeon and the mystique grew as people spread word of this unbeatable dungeon that no adventurer could survive. It's kind of meta to be honest, because that's the kind of in-game NPC-talk that would pique an adventurer's curiosity, and it was happening IRL. So yea, it was never made/built to be played at home with friends, which is why it is not fun to be played at home with friends. It's made to be played with a huge audience watching and everyone drinking and laughing about the impossibility of it. The former is miserable, the latter is less so b/c it's a nerd-party essentially. So all the mystique and wonder surrounding that kind of carried on via stories and such to new generations of players that don't enjoy it because it was made for a specific time and place, not to be an awesome experience in and of itself.
Great way to check out the dungeon, thanks for posting it! Just wanted to say, for anyone wondering why a module known for killing characters and even parties seems so easy --- it's because OG Tomb was made for characters level 10-14 --- and even considering you're only going with 3 people versus 4, a level 20 blows a CR 15 encounter out of the water and has way higher skills and bonuses, not to mention the magic items. I'm not complaining, just explaining for the curious :)
I survived the tomb of horrors! And all I got out of it was a t-shirt saying I survived the tomb of horrors. And a life time supply of Rice-A-Roni the San Francisco treat.
The problem with running this as a modern adventure is that this module was written as a 1st edition module and then converted to 5e. When it was written by Gary Gygax, he was almost assuredly writing it with the idea that it would be explored in the style of 1st edition, which was much more in the style of wargaming then modern D&D. What do I mean by this? In 1st edition, at this level, you are expected to have henchmen, men-at-arms, along with your party. You go in to an adventure having first hired all of the help you need. Likely you would have many hired hands or even followers with you that would be sent through first. It would also be expected that you would have consulted a sage and perhaps used legend lore spells to gain some information. While the information gained in this way would still be minimal it would be a good start. Also, you would be expected to have powerful magic items, such as scrolls of resurrection, to help you on your quest. Perhaps after consulting with a sage and learning that the dungeon is filled with secret doors, your group purchases a ring of x-ray vision to help them. As mentioned by others, the style of 1e is to challege you as a player to solve the traps and riddles rather than to challenge the character that you are role-playing as. 1st edition dungeons are also expected to be explored in small stages. You group would go in, discover a few things, come back out and rest, then return later with your aquired knowledge. The mindset expected by players is much different now then it was back then. If you were to revisit your playthrough with a small retainer of fighters and more potent magical items, it's likely you would have a much different outcome.
I remember when our DM put this Dungeon into his game and sent 5 level 12 Characters in there. We weren't build for any if this. But got exactly as far as this group. We got killed by the rock at the end except for one dude whose Int dropped to 1. But we decided to not keep going and just quit the campaign right then and there
Okay, for some of you younger kids. Gary designed this for use at a convention. Yes he tested it out with his player group, but it was meant to be a meat grinder where you had a line of people waiting to get a chance to play this game and yes, they all understand that when you go to a convention or at least back then you did have the expectation that the games were going to be either fluff pieces to show you the mechanics of the game or an absolute meat grinder where you try to be the last bad out and see how far your character made it that day. These were cousins to the fun house dungeon
Their voices and mannerisms at the start compared to after the 3 hour mark is amusing. This one challenges the player rather that the character, it was also designed for a time when people would show up to with 5+ character sheets, hence all the insta death stuff. as far as the lvl 1 thing, Spencer would have died to the poison needle trap at the start is she was lvl 1, but the point still stands, taking the saves into consideration, anything over 7 or 8 would probably be just as good as all 20
first love the vid, you guys had the same despair with it like i did when i tried it. But to be fair to some of the critique tomb of horror was made at a time when players was boasting about how strong they were and how they cleared every dungeon with easy. Tomb of Horrors was written specifically to challenge the skill of players. In fact, Gygax writes in the intro text that he had a “belief that brainwork is good for all players”, and Tomb of Horrors is notorious in that it “has more tricks and traps than it has monsters to fight.”
Yaaasss this is literally just an old-school point and click adventure in DnD, lots of shit will randomly kill you for just messing with it but you need to mess around with stuff to find the right path. It isn't a view we have in modern "games" of any variety where if a player loses because of information they didn't have its "unfair" and "bad design" no its just not the design you've grown up with since the 90s.
I can see the sleep gas room..... "Don't go in there! You know it's a trap. This whole damn place is one big trap!" Actor boldly walks in and says, "Guys, I feel a little weird...." Collapses into the floor. *Everyone else rolls their eyes and gets annoyed. Next scene is the tank character dragging the sleeping person by the collar out of the room while mumbling.
@@k2cr actually I think it’s 360 cause max roles + 20 con is 17 per lever x20 340 +hill dwarf witch is +1 per level so +20 getting 360 tell me if I forgot anything.
This was a tournament adventure meant for conventions for players with very little backgrounds but playing so they would later discuss who traveled the farthest in it. Funny thing is that most characters would leave after the gaslighted boss fight.
The motto in the tomb of horrors is "nothing is what it seems" The fake resolution to the tomb subverts expectations in a maniacally sweet way for me as a DM. I've never presented them with a puzzle at all, we are more of the hack and slash kind of group. I feel like once they got out of the tomb and found out all of their gold to be copper. It would teach them a lesson not to mess with a demilich if they don't want to rack their brains.
I don't think a monk would be the most overpowered 20th level character you could make, but it really helped out when she lost her stuff because any other class would be pretty much useless
"if you find the false you find the true" references the trap door under the fake door that just opens to a wall. The poem is telling them to take the trap door. That is the hint to lead you away from the juggernaut.
Look, guys, the point is they aren't playing the original dungeon in the conventions with the OG creator, they are playing this one as it was released for 5e with a home group, because that's what WoTC made.
There are several things that make this dungeon the way it is. First: It was originally created by Gary Gygax to challenge his players in his home campaign that told him over and over again that he can do nothing to them they could not survive. Gygax was pretty competetive so he just made the most lethal dungeon - the pit traps alone were much more difficult back in the day because poison meant insta-death. Second: It was later converted into a challenge module for conventions in which you could win money and other prizes, so making it hard is a given. Also it was expected to bring like 100 backup characters so if you get the feeling character does not matter, you are right, as it literally was designed in a way to make character not matter. Then, in the conversion into a convention-module it also lost many things that made up a story behind it. Gygax once stated that there was more of a story behind it in his home game and that many things directly were conections to his players characters complete with a whole mystery of "what is a demi-lich and what are its motives?". Sadly this story is now lost to time. Also some traps were removed and relocated so the poem sometimes is a bit weird as some things now did no longer fit. Third: Back then DM againt the player was the way to play the game. Also most monsters had not much of a backstory and it was pretty much a given that a dungeon would be a challenge that you could fight through, so back then this was a true innovation. It also is very important to understand that those dungeons had usually pretty cryptic riddles that were supposed to be thaught through by the players and not by their characters sometimes even with hints that wouldn't make sense i a d&d world (not in this module though). This was something that was created for AD&D and was pretty great back then (probably even more if one knew the story behind that - which comes down to only the Gygax Group who suffered through it in his home game). So in the end you just HAVE to make something up around it and adjust stuff to make it fun in newer versions, also - if you take your time - you can piece together some pieces of the story that was behind that dungeon so that way you can recreate some sort of story that makes it a good experience. - Greetings from Germany, love your vids.
And that’s when Jacob realized that he did the death room wrong. The save happens in that room not the hallway before hand. But it’s not like the book makes that supper clear so it’s forgivable.
Wait. I just realised while reading what the "equipment stealing" portals do. You can throw your party member in while being morphed as "unliving matter" (Flesh to stone work I guess) and have them appear in the treasure room. Just make sure you have a way to dig an exit or a teleportation something.
Interesting party. If you got rid of the AL rules I would have went with all yuan-ti purebloods (For the immunity to poison and resistance to magic) consisting of a Level 20 inquisitive rogue, Level 20 divination wizard (for the portant ability and divination spells), and a level 20 warlock of the undying. Some helpful feats would be dungeon delver, keen mind, and observant. Proficiency with thieves tools and cartography would also be nice. I'd have the warlock use Visions of Distant Realms to begin scouting ahead and mapping out the dungeon. Ghostly Gaze, Eldritch Sight, Gaze of Two Minds, and Devil's Sight would also help. Remember to have the rogue constantly checking for traps as well as using either a spear or pole to constantly check the ground for pit traps. As for the wizard, before entering the dungeon have the wizard use true polymorph to turn an object into a creature and maintain concentration for an hour. So long as you treated it nicely you now have either a challenge rating 9 creature or level 9 NPC to serve as an ally. (Perhaps a young silver or bronze dragon, a clay or flesh golem, a shield guardian, a werebear or weretiger, a helmed horror, etc. As for a level 9 NPC, a cleric would be good for heals or barbarian for a front line meat shield) Use this creature to walk ahead and experiment so that if it dies no one important is lost. A bit heartless and cowardly I know but this is the tomb of horrors. I would spend several in game days creating NPCs, mapping out the dungeon, detecting and dispelling magic, and experimenting with the puzzles. Remember to either use Gaze of Two Minds or telepathy to communicate with the NPCs and gain information for mapping and investigating the dungeon.
you are too nice to them in the multi hidden door room ! In this room I told my players when they find the hidden door panels they look like they can be manipulated from various directions and to try many combinations to see how they open. ALSO every turn in these chambers you were supposed to attack them with bolts from the ceiling..so nice you are!
The reason they died was by opening things with their hands, moving through a place without using objects to test things, and their builds could of been better. Not about ac/hp/checks/saves but testing things, since there are auto kills. Over all this is not a test of dnd but how paranoid one could be, not fun in my book.
Yeah that's the problem it's not DnD it's a choose your own adventure book there's basically no checks the whole time so basically your character doesn't matter the player does
@@joshuawright4198 Not really, there is nothing clever about throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks... The "puzzles" in this dungeon have no clues as to what they do to figure them out... The smartest biggest brained person can't do anything with "it's a black doorway" or "there are three levers" it's all just trial and error. From what I gather from the comments this was meant to be done with expendable hirelings and slaves... Just getting them to try things to see what works or doesn't... That's not smart, your not figuring anything out, there is no skill involved. If the dungeon had more clever traps that had more to them than "you did the arbitrary thing that you couldn't have known was bad so now your dead" then it could be good, but so much of it is just "no fuck you"... Which is what it's meant to be, that's fine but I'm not sure why everyone holds it in such high regard. It's a fuck you deathtrap that isn't fun to play.
@@greatclubsandwich5612 Yeah I agree I was suggesting that perhaps particular players skills could come into play more because as it is your actual character doesn't matter there's no skill checks, or saves against traps basically the whole time you could turn this into a choose your adventure book and there wiyld be next to no difference
@@joshuawright4198 thats like the whole point. It's a dungeon less focused on characters and more focused on players. Bevause it was for tournament games
On one end, I'm thinking that it doesn't take 10 minutes for them to pick up her ("his" I guess it is now) sleeping body and walk less than 100 feet and open a door. I don't think he should have rolled for the steamroller so soon. I would imagine that was about 2 or 3 minutes, and once they saw nothing in the room, they would have left before enough time had passed for the juggernaut to get the chance to come out. On the other end, I understand that they were all basically checked out mentally and he took a chance to put them out of their misery.
i really got the feeling tyler was metagaming about the orb on annihilation in the demons mouth. possibly everyone was, not blaming anyone, its pretty much the most memorable thing about the entire tomb, ive never even played dnd and i knew about it.
I think Colton(The Barb if I got his name right) got the idea perfectly ToH might be the King of AD&D but it just doesn't translate well into 5E ESPECIALLY to newer players whom don't understand that "this is just a dead end" Back then, the game was SOLELY dungeon crawling, but I guess people just don't get that now of days And I feel there was an unspoken rule or an understanding that instadeath was justpart of the game
I am currently leading a group through the tales from the yawning portal and I am very glad i saw this. I will make a drinking game out of it. Everytime you think this is stupid/annoying and/or does not make fun/sense, you drink one.
![The Complete Story of Destiny! From origins to Shadowkeep [Timeline and Lore explained]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9mbDXvDNqTU/mqdefault.jpg)
Jacob ran this for me as a shadow monk and I pretty much beat it solo.
Cool Shadow Monks are awesome
Just play a Warforged Shadow Monk with no possessions and take the Dungeon Delver feat. Pull a no you on the DM.
Sure you did logan, sure you did
Can't tell if true or a shit post
@@haloreaper1018 ik right
Where the party messed up: you didn't bring a stack of 10 foot poles
I'm told this is 1E's most treasured mundane item
@@TheWorldBelowDnD it is an awesome item even today. I never leave home without one or an equivalent.
@@h0ll0w0ne nowadays its called mage hand
@@lucasbrant9856 I you went to wizard college.
Absolutely gotta have the 10ft pole, tomb of horrors is rough but not as hard as they made it seem. Just expect everything to not be as it seems. Side note tomb of annihilation was a cake walk compared to this.
You have to realize that this was created by Gary Gygax because his friend was bragging that he couldnt create a dungeon that could kill his character.
and it didn't kill his character.
Seems player complain so much about rolling dice, but their expectations were so far off. Expecting to just be murder hobos. The skill monkey started off staring at the floor but they don't really investigate or even try to figure out puzzles. Just went into this wanting to fight huge monsters.
It’s easy to create a dungeon that can kill any character. “You walk into the dungeon? Cool, your character dies.” And that’s pretty much what Gygax did here. Don’t get me wrong, I think I would enjoy the puzzle of this dungeon. I’m very very patient when it comes to figuring out clues and don’t give up easily. But scripted insta-death just doesn’t mesh well with puzzle-solving imo.
The most OP character would be a really strong character, and the person who made them has the brain the size of a truck
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Why does the tomb of horrors sound *exactly* like a maze my little brother would build to mess with me in minecraft?
This has 123 likes at the time I am writing this lol. And I can totaly see why this would feel like that.
Sorry Steve that was not the password please fall into lava. Loose all your equipment. and respawn as Alex. No you do not keep your enchantment levels
Because just like your brother Gary Gygax wanted to torture his players for his own twisted amusement, hoping that by making your day miserable their day could be just a little brighter, filling their empty void of a soul in the hopes to one day be what they see and torture...human.
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they would though it just be a funny prank.
Because it is
Geygax is your brother?
"Is there anything on the altar? Like a bible?"
Cus this dungeon needs jesus
amen
absolutley!
Jesus, Allah, Buddah - it needs them all.
............. To come in and pull a mini "revelation" on it if you get the reference......
i feel like the tomb of horrors is 30% luck 30% being smart and 40% death
john batory 100% Trial and Error
50% death, 50% existential despair
It is honestly more like 85% having played Gygax modules before. His approach to tricking and challenging player characters is pretty consistent and you can usually anticipate the Gygaxisms in his adventures after a few games. Things like always cutting open the beast monsters you fight because there is probably treasure in their stomachs, always looking up at the ceiling before entering a room to see what horror is lurking there, carrying a 10 foot pole and a bag of ball bearings to trigger traps in any corridors or openings.
His modules shaped how we played in 1st and 2nd edition. Players who have never played a Gygax module are going to have a REAL HARD TIME with Tomb of Horrors because they are not going to be thinking like someone who knows to look for the Gygaxisms. There were also different mechanics in place. Like the doorway behind the plaster on the wall - elves and such just get an automatic roll to possibly detect hidden doors. So, you know, not updating it for 5E means a lot of it does not make sense anymore.
@@AuntieHauntieGames man its so great to hear others remjnisce about adnd. I miss it sometimes
No it’s just 99% “crap to piss you off” and 1% death
Jacob has that "can I speak to your DM" haircut.
"I would like to speak to the BBEG! Get them now! I am not to be kept waiting!"
You mean "I want to speak to the Dungeon Manager!" ?
They have already spoken with each other.
Jakob did not like the results.
The Karen of DND, what should we name it?
@@frostyz8091 Rule Lawyer.
Guys, I started playing D&D in 1982. This adventure (we called them "modules" back then) was already legendary when I started playing. Gygax wrote this as a one shot for Origins 1 (IIRC). It was designed to kill players, pure and simple. It was never really designed to be "fun" or to incorporate in a campaign, as far as I know. Yep, my group back then went through it, using the 1st edition rules, and I'm pretty sure most of us died. I *think* our DM just pretended the whole session never really happened and we continued on with our campaign. Thinks for bringing back some memories.
Actually, there's more to the story. He pulled ToH out of his personal homebrew version of Greyhawk that was never published for the public to consume (i.e. not the version of Greyhawk that you and I know and love, it's from his personal version that he played at his home table with his players), and he wrote it for his personal home group of players because this is the kind of content they (i.e. his players) enjoyed; so he gave them what they liked, just like a good DM is supposed to do, rather than think it would be too mean to do to them. Give them what they want regardless of what you initially or anyone else on the outside looking in thinks, because if your players are having fun, then you are too. Try it once or twice if they ask for something a little more challenging or deadly, and if they don't like it, tone it down a notch or two until you hit the mark; or you can just never do that again. That's the hard part about being a DM, because you want to cheer for your players, but you unfortunately have to play as the enemy; and the enemy wants to survive as well. His personal home group of players enjoyed really deadly, meat grinder, heavy laden with traps, puzzles and tricks (i.e. tricks, for example, would be like the walls of mist, or the lever when pulled makes someone fall into a pit), dungeons and adventures that was as similar to real life as one could get while still remaining fantastical in nature. That's why there's no saves for some of the traps, because for example, the pit traps are 10ft. x 10ft. rather than the normal 5ft. x 5ft.; put simply, he applied the rules of reality to the fact that the extra 5ft. wouldn't allow for a chance to save because the PC wouldn't be close enough to a ledge to grab a hold of.
Pretty sure we still use modules, but we use them to refer to books with full campaigns in them, vs single session adventures.
An og dnd player
@@SGAman123_ go on the dragonsfoot.org forums. Theres plenty of them, still playing ad&d and discussing rules and adventures.
I too am an 80s dnd guy. I think the problem is that ToH was built with 1e characters in mind and can't hold up against a party of 5e OP characters. 1:1 a 5e Barb, Monk, and Rogue would make short work of their 1e counter-parts. I mean, an AD&D Barb would have no magic items, because they eshewed and mistrusted magic; and I don't remember them having a damage mitigating ability.
Also, back then we had to make maps on paper. The dm described the rooms as we proceeded and we had to draw it. I think that increased player buy in. I can say, having played on VTTs, I got a lot less distracted back then than I do now. So this, maybe the original dungeon crawl, was more enjoyable under those circumstances.
“DM against the players” is exactly how old D&D really was. This was also originally labeled as “The Thinking Man’s Dungeon”, implying that it’s about the puzzles, not just combat. That said, I think most of the “fun” comes from the collective trauma from experiencing this.
I think adding a madness counter and alcohol into the mix will make the dungeon better.
My original DM who taught me how to play in 2nd edition, describe Dungeons & Dragons to me as DM versus the players and players versus the dms.
And I remember flat-out asking him, but isn't the point of the game, any game for everyone involved to have fun? And he basically told me that it was fun.
As crazy as it sounds, to this day that man is both the best and worst DM I have ever had in my life. He taught me everything I knew and got me hooked on this game, and it's what allowed me to develop my own play style and home brew.
But on the flip side I don't know if I would ever want to play in another one of his campaigns
@@zenketski So, was he only good because he has awoken the flame of the dragon within you, or were there actual advantages at the table? Like, what fun moments came through that mindset?
@@Jorvard he had some legitimately fun campaigns and some legitimately fun moments. But it always felt like he was just waiting to Catch You Slippin. Maybe now that I'm older, it would be more fun, or at least easier to not die.
Kind of imagined it like Dark Souls. It can be really frustrating at first, but when you succeed you really felt like you earned it.
zenketski I agree with u
Technically, this is the best way for a villain to guard their tomb (even without instant death): Just make it annoying. Impossible to proceed, a bunch of minor setbacks, and a very easy way to leave. Unless Acererak was a campaign villain that you had a longstanding history with and needed to slay, any normal person, even an adventurer, would realize this isn't worth it.
Honestly given how deadly the dungeon is... its rewards are NOTHING!
My question is, if you're high enough to complete the dungeon, do you really need that treasure?
@@bradbutler89 I want to be a God amongst mortals Bradley.
@@bradbutler89 Well technically you could beat the dungeon with a single level 1 character.
Also back in 1st edition every GP you took home with you would also give you an XP point.
@@bradbutler89 It's not about the treasure in ToH, it's about beating Gary at his own game.
Millie: I ritual cast Identify on the altar.
DM: It's enchanted with Lightning Bolt and Fireball.
Millie: Do I know how it's triggered?
DM: If you touch it.
Me: Identify is a touch spell. He was touching it for 10 minutes.
But it was a SPECIAL TOUCH if he was touching anything other than the alter it would have been a felony.
the tomb of horrors is so bullshit that you have to let the players pull some bullshit of their own. So even if Jacob noticed this he probably wouldn't care.
"There is no save for knocking them prone"
Actually, knocking someone prone is a contested strength check against the opponents strength or dex. Barbarians can just do that as a bonus action, they don't automatically succeed.
Credit to Spencer for gutting out the game. Once she lost her stuff, I could see her Give A Sh!t leave her eyes (01:42:30). She then spent two more hours being a good team mate and helping where she could. What a hero! (truly!)
That being said, her character was the best one to lose all her stuff. Who else is as powerful, when naked, as a monk? She still would have been a force to be reckoned with - if there were any combat to be had in this scenario.
And for uptting up with the dude in the middle, CONSTANTLY cutting her of and hugging her spotlight. Half of the video in, and i couldnt stand it anymore.
The best class that I have seen run through this dungeon when watching other players play through it when I run it for players is a pure shadow monk build or a pure theif build rogue. Just keep that in mind if a DM ever wants to run this for you. Just be cautious and stay, if possible, away from any tricks and always look for other options for solutions to the problems you are faced with. Traps are detectable, puzzles can be solved, but tricks no one can beat. And there are both mechanical and magical tricks in ToH. An example for a mechanical trick would be the one near the entrance when you pull the lever (i.e. it actually doesn't trigger when you stand on it, that's why it's not a trap, because you willingly do it to yourself but gives you an unexpected result of falling into the 30ft. pit, no spikes by the way, just falling damage, so yeah, it was ran a little incorrectly, but the DM was correct, you do have to juggle a lot of information with this dungeon, so I don't blame him for it, and it is also actually the 10ft. by 10ft. area north of the real trap where the door is just south of it, so that when a PC tries to jump over it they fall directly into the real trap just south of the lever trick pitfall). And an example of a magical trick would be the walls of mist.
P.S. The first wall of mist is both a trick and a puzzle combined. If you do it correctly, it will transport you to a room just north of the second long corridor with all the spheres.
@@KamiRecca It happens in a lot of their games. You can see her get frustrated with it sometimes. Logan did it constantly in water deep. It was possibly in character but still. And her hubby ignores her a lot when DMing. But that could be that he is bad at multitasking and only the louder players get through.
A druid.
@@professeurgideere5856 without a spell casting focus?
Love how an hour in, 1/3 the story thus far is a cubicle and characters. lol
Cubicles & Characters sounds like the worst Dungeons & Dragons ripoff
@@Shaboigan what adventurers play when they're in between quests
One of my favorite moments? 2:56:15
Spencer: If you hover over Acererak, there's a question mark at the end of his name...?
Jacob: *smiles
I get it
*I DON’T GET IT*
When Spencer showed up on Jacob's webcam, I was very confused. "What. how did she. are they just sitting next to each other? Is EVERYONE actually there in person, but in separate rooms playing online?"
Then I remembered they're married and live together.
My favorite is that you can see the back of Jacobs chair bounce into the left of her frame occasionally
@@PaigeDyerASMR
When Jacob is so energetic that he transcends picture boxes
You wanted to forget, be honest :P
Acererak is just a less sadistic Kevin McCallister
You just made me think of that whole movie as a party of two rogues getting destroyed by a sadistic 8 year old
I love that you used the word ‘less’
Best comment XDDDDDD
@@pantlooner9601 I mean, he definitely becomes Jigsaw 😂😂😂
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Totally gonna use this inspiration.
Imma have a pair of Twin brothers, one is Kevin McCallister, the other is the brother from The Good Son.
O.o
"can i have my necklace back?"
"I kinda broke it"
"Thanks"
Your fiance is a champion for sticking with this. She looked miserable haha
I love how you can tell Jacob is losing patients during the entire dungeon. Feels good man.
How many patients did he lose?
3.5cm when erect, my miniature tent is.
Many
serves him right for trying to do surgery and d&d at the same time
I love how they didn't even edit it to fix it
@@ctrlaltdelete6539 lol, he doesnt realize it needs an edit
This was specifically a competition module, i.e. it was run as a contest at a convention. No one was supposed to actually beat the dungeon; it was a case of "Whoever gets the furthest in before everybody dies wins." At the end there's Acererak himself to bat cleanup just in case a group gets super lucky and makes it that far; if the DM plays him right he's going to wipe the floor with any reasonably leveled party (he can basically eat up to 8 souls, and if that's not enough to wipe out the party he just teleports the survivors hundreds of miles away). My brother bought this module way back when to play in 1st Edition AD&D, read it, said "this doesn't look fun at all" and so we never used it.
"I needed my comfort pillow" is exactly the right response for this dungeon.
I just like imagining the life of a pure barbarian that ascended to lvl 20. Wild Willy must’ve have an interesting life
-My mom is dead
-Oh, Im so sorry
Wild Willy: *lmao thats so funny I gonna laugh*
"We've been traveling together for a decade but never spoken a word to each other" is the eingle greatest backstory ive ever heard XD
I decided "I've never played or watched D&D, time to check out what it's all about" and this is the first video I clicked on. I'm two hours in, and I get the strong impression most campaigns are different.
Very different. This has an interesting origin that you can read about in various comments here. It was originally created in a drastically older variant of DnD and has gone through several changes to accommodate the newer editions/mechanics. Most sessions are about rp or combat now, less so worrying that the dungeon is trying to actively kill you. For the right group however this and other similar puzzle esque dungeons can be fun
This is one of the hardest ..
absolutely, most campaigns are more RP-Heavy, and dungeon-design is adapted to modern audiences and far less nonsensical.
Correct
Hahaha, this is like the worst example of D&D (Jacob and crew are fun, but this particular dungeon is deliberately designed to be frustrating and kill everyone - its a big f you to the players - hence why its infamous).
i love how little effort jacob is putting into the description and npcs ljkdflkjhglfdkj really drives home how absolutely done he is-- go girl, give us nothing
Yea by the end he's just telling them where to go next basically and it doesnt help. Thats what annoys me. The DM can literally tell you what each room contains and you can still die.
this dungeon is the definition of "YOU GET NOTHING! YOU LOSE! *GOOD DAY SIR!* "
Welp. This was basically designed as a treasure vault one shot of cursed death, not an actual TTRPG dungeon to play through a campaign.
Yes, that does not mean it is fun.
I think you absolutely could put this in a campaign, it would just need a hefty overhaul or a GIANT warning
Or both
@@MrWowwow2211 i would just put this somewhere in my world sand when you find it give a warning of “you may not want to do this”
@@gabevenderdahl1642 That's how old school games were played by default. A sandbox where players sometimes left to go back to town for months at a time. Henchman were also expected. Youd sometimes even leave after completing a floor in the dungeon, level up elsewhere, and come back at higher levels.
"I like how done we are at this point."
"WE ARE TWO HOURS IN!"
VIDEO: Has another hour and a half.
I'm like 10 minutes in and I can already tell I'll never forget the tale of Callie, Millie, and Wild Willie.
Me and a few friends decided to run this RAW with level 20 gestalt characters and everyone decided to go for combat min/maxing so about 30 minutes and 2 rooms later, everyone had quit out of frustration
I’ve always wanted to run a gestalt Complete Warrior Samurai/Tome of Magic Truenamer
An hour in: they found a single room and killed a single mob
sounds like my group, when i made a 3 room, 2 hallway dungeon, with 4 mobs
turns out, they can't aim for shit.
and no one had darkvision for a cave.
they new it was a cave setting
some times I wonder why I invited them
@@wickederebus Darkvision is an inherent racial trait...characters can't just typically acquire it to prepare for a cave (without crazy magic help), why not expect them to bring light sources like torches/lanterns instead?
@@futuza
It's been 3 years now, but here.
because I expect one guy to always appeal to his fetish for playing dwarves.
I expect another guy to appeal to his fetish for lesser played/non standard races, which typically have dark vision.
And for another guy, he can't be bothered to think things through at all.
@@wickederebus Sounds like a group in desperate need of a session 0 where expectations can be met, discussed, agreed upon, etc. since apparently they're not meeting any of yours. But maybe somethings changed since 3 years?
@@futuza not really no. The dwarf still does Dwarf things.
The "my special character is special" guy still does that.
The idiot still does idiot things.
And I still suffer.
The dull sarcasm of “8000 dragons, roll initiative” was comedic genius.
Tomb of Horrors - The clues are TECHNICALLY correct, which is the best kind of correct.
There are two reasons for this adventure. It depends which way you look at it. Meta, it was an adventure designed to challenge players not the characters. In plot terms, it is a soul mill for the Demi lich.
Just watched the video on the main channel, I have amazing timing apparently!
Spencer's patience is legendary.
The reason why this sucks: this was created for the people most experienced with old D&D. The concept of DM vs player is definitely more in older editions, but D&D back then was definitely more of a mental exercise for people who like math & problem solving. Old D&D was extremely dungeon-based and Gary’s players were veterans of typical dungeon environments. Putting this dungeon in 5e is an extreme amount of whiplash because 5e is drastically different than the original game. In older games 10 ft poles, and other equipment types were used to suss out traps, keep in mind, the deletion of your equipment can be an issue, but these older editions used a substantial amount of encumbrance (variant encumbrance now was viewed as a lighter substitute to the typical in 2e so I can’t imagine what it was like in the edition prior) so there’s an extremely good chance that you still have supplies on the outside. It’s a setback, but definitely not career ending.
I can see the gap in playstyle by the way that they entered into the dungeon. This playstyle isn’t fun for many newer players since rp>>>>puzzles to them, but in older editions you’d never just walk straight in, especially if you know that this is a dungeon made by a lich. You’d have your 10 ft poles out checking the ground for pits, you’d send in your familiar first, you’d bring a bag of flour to see airflow. Nobody would walk into the same room at the same time unless somebody (the thief usually) had already figured out that it’s safe. This also usually meant that person had first pick at loot. This game is supposed to be something that could be beaten by almost any level of players (except for the combats) so long as they’re diligent and go in thinking: this entire thing is meant to kill me my mind has to be firing on all cylinders if I want to get out of this alive. Also in older editions, while some would call this metagaming, I call it playing a game, the skill rolls took a backseat to clever ideas & planning because your stats & abilities weren’t intended to be a straitjacket.
It should also be said that some of its conventions also weren't unusual for its time. "I just kill you" was not that rare in the adnd days (In fact I believe there was a mimic who just did that. If you fell for the mimic it just kills you no save), effects that just destroy all your equipment were not THAT rare (well, more rare than just killing you), and the idea that dungeons had to make perfect sense wasn't really invented yet so dungeons that just had a hodgepodge of completely antagonistic-to-eachother creatures was the norm.
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The interesting thing I find in adnd though... If something is an obvious trap, it was usually an obvious trap and they often had no mercy on you if you fell for it. As well while you had skills, most dungeons had some aspect you would have to solve yourself.
I believe in the original book for this dungeon it says its written to challenge the players and not the characters and that outright metagaming is both encouraged and required, not sure if they left that part in for the 5e remake
Exactly. I see this with a lot with younger players. They look at their class features and rules as a menu of their limits, not as just box of crayons of what they can do (but are not limited to).
Not to mention, 1e d&d players did tend to bring along henchmen, hirelings, and others (my players tended to utilize captured Kobolds that were forced to wear 50 lbs backpacks so they'd trigger pit traps and pressure plates;-) to do a bit of the experimentation for them or just for general support. System mastery also tended to be a bit higher as well, where a lot of players in 5e tend to focus on damage output. And spellcaster players are even more prone to that outlook now since they no longer have to husband their resources as carefully as they did in prior editions (a wizard with a fireball fetish still screams noob to me tho;-).
That said, the Tomb has probably never been easier given the 5th edition ruleset & options. It still definitely is not for everyone.
@@MrCSeiberlin Thats true... It isn't unusual to see Wizards with nothing but a damage spells and MAYBE 1-2 defensive ones.
Nionivek I love wizard utility spells, but I’ve rarely played with DMs that make challenges that cannot be solved without magic, and since games rarely go beyond 7th-8th level in my groups I just can’t spare the spell slots to use many non-combat spells
High-level thinking: "I'll walk down the hallway carefully and use my winged boots if there's a pit trap."
Low-level thinking: "I pick up some of the rubble we cleared and start throwing pieces down the hallway to see if anything happens."
The dislikes are Acerak and his 2 minions
A$$ Crack
Kybou, charming
10 minions now.
@@durnsidh6483 his army is growing
@@davidhollowelljr949 dear god, 34 minions
1:34:00 Holy crap! This is completely uncharted territory!
3:18:00 ROAD ROLLER!
All I have to say about this dungeon is... WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
That last room was badly administered (@3:18:30). The gas is in the north-south room. The juggernaut was in the 4x4 room. It wasn't hiding someplace. The characters that fall asleep and are not helped out of the way are crushed when it eventually moves. Their chance to save (live) was the sleep gas save. That's no different than a lethal poison, the death is just deferred and allows other players to drag them back to safety. If the characters get into the 4x4 room they will see the juggernaut and can get out of it's way if/when it starts moving.
Honestly, the way 5th edition is generally played does nothing to prepare players for this sort of dungeon. Like one of the players said, your character means little in this dungeon. Your play-style, wits, and experience are what matters here - and a good bit of luck.
When my group ran this one, they sent a wolf animal companion through the mist in the chapel, and it came back as an evil female wolf... XD
I'm not even playing and I feel like I died but was brought back and told I have to watch this for eternity and this is my 300th time watching this.
What I find funny is that from a character perspective this dungeon is flat out NOT worth it. You would expect such a dungeon to set you for life, but any adventurer group collectively has more treasure than this dungeon.
Not even a single spell scroll above FIFTH level, and it's made for level TWENTY characters.
You get 100,000 gp black opal, you get a 50,000 and a couple thousand gold pieces of other stuff. So it's a decent chunk of money, but it's NOT worth it.
@@haku8135 Especially if your pc’s had priceless and irreplaceable items on them, that are worth considerably more than 150,000 and some change gp’s.
@@wynterfir when you win you retrieve the items you lost
Wait until you travel more than 13 miles away from the dungeon......LMFAO
@@flask223 You act as if there is a chance of that happening.
There’s some absolutely amazing hilarious lines in this vod like “I’m probably the strongest man in the universe”
Moral of the story. Players that love puzzles, are good t solving them, and pay meticulous attention to detail and are through will probably love this dungeon. This is a dungeon for the kind fo people that love escape rooms and learn how to solve the Rubix cube.
As a DM I would make sure that every player had hard copies of every riddle and diagrams of every puzzle. Its very hard to do these things with just verbal descriptions.
How do you defeat invincible characters? Make the characters not matter as much as the player's choices.
No no see that's the thing that's not it... What puzzles were there to solve? What clues were there that could actually help you get past them? So many traps are just fuck you your dead BS with no indication or hints as to that's what they are... How can you know the juggernaut will insta-kill you if you go the wrong way? How do you know what the right way is? You don't. It's all trial and error but the error is instant death. You either must guess correctly through every trap to the end (unlikely) or die. There is no big brain 100 play that gets you through this. It's all trial and error.
@@greatclubsandwich5612 It doesn't though. It waits at least 10 minutes waiting in that top room. What SHOULD have happened there is that the 2 non asleep should have seen it in the 20/20 room and noped the f back out. Then the only penalty would have been the annoyance of her being asleep for 10-20 min.
This is the kind of dungeon I'd love to play. My instinct on dungeons is always to start throwing rocks through doorways and banging on the walls looking for hidden doors and weak spots.
If this party had *one* caster with mage hand, their lives would be a lot easier
As an aspiring DM, this DEFINITELY emphasized the importance of in-game hints for puzzles. Finding out the method of the archway sounds simple, but the entire rest of the dungeon seems to punish a simplistic approach, so no wonder the players didn't just assume "the obvious."
Just seeing the visible frustration on the players' faces before the first hour wad up would have given me an anxiety attack!
HOT TAKE: I believe 'the intention' was meant to be a rotating door of characters. If you go into it looking forward to what ridiculous way you might die, this dungeon stands out as one of the funnest, most ridiculous, good time one shot dungeons out there. If you take beloved characters in there, or if you want it to run like a standard dungeon, you're going to have a bad time. Embrace the Horror.
Along those lines, what a lot of people are missing is this dungeon was a test of the players, not the player characters.
Running head first into this dungeon’s challenges while rolling dice to beat them will kill every party that tries it, which is why the level of the party and their equipment isn’t a factor.
This group was just blindly testing every button, portal, and room they came across because they assumed their character dice would save them from any bad decisions they made. That assumption is the deadly one of this dungeon.
This would be a lot less painful if the DM added "they light up one after another" to the stones on the arch. Which is how I thought it was meant to be seen, like Simon Says, instead of them all lighting up at the same time
Yeah, I had the same thought. I think the answer to the puzzle was lost in the description as written, because it doesn't explicitly say they light up in that order, they're just described in that order. Assume the DM is reading verbatim here, so it's a case of lost in translation rather than anything the players are missing. It doesn't even say, "x lights up, then y lights up, then z" just "x glows yellow, y glows orange, z glows blue" with no indication that they didn't light up simultaneously.
I came to the comments section to look for this exactly 👆🏻 Jacob made it sound like they all just light up simultaneously 😅 they could have possibly made it a lot faster if it was described that way 🤷🏼♂️
It actually still wouldn't help because in the Tales from the Yawning Portal description of the archway it says they light up yellow then orange then blue but the answer to the puzzle is yellow then blue then orange
"The stone archway before you is filled with a veil of thick
vapors. The stones on either side of the base and the key
stone protrude slightly from the stones around them. As
you move to within touching distance, the left-hand base
stone begins to glow yellow, the right-hand base stone
orange, and the keystone seven feet above blue."
"Nothing will cause the vapors to clear, nor will any sort of magic allow sight into the area, until the glowing stones are pressed in the proper sequence: yellow, blue, orange. If this is done, the vapors disappear, and the path appears to go eastward. "
@@CasuallyFunnyGuy Yeah, there are still a few problems with toh, but some of it is jacob.
That is entirely the player's fault for not asking if they all lit up at once. Very sloppy play.
It sure is fun watching people who have lost the will to live after the first hour play a dungeon. Gary Gygax cackles from his grave.
The real reason there's so much legend around it is that it was built and existed long before it was officially released. It was "Gary's Dungeon", and it would only be whipped out at meet-ups and cons (or the analogue of what a convention would be back then). The intent was that everyone would talk up their incredible, amazing characters at these meetups, so they would then be met with this player-killer dungeon and the mystique grew as people spread word of this unbeatable dungeon that no adventurer could survive. It's kind of meta to be honest, because that's the kind of in-game NPC-talk that would pique an adventurer's curiosity, and it was happening IRL.
So yea, it was never made/built to be played at home with friends, which is why it is not fun to be played at home with friends. It's made to be played with a huge audience watching and everyone drinking and laughing about the impossibility of it. The former is miserable, the latter is less so b/c it's a nerd-party essentially. So all the mystique and wonder surrounding that kind of carried on via stories and such to new generations of players that don't enjoy it because it was made for a specific time and place, not to be an awesome experience in and of itself.
when I watch people have fun with D&D it just makes me smile, this just made me sad xD
"OH MY GOD, Your voice sounds like that?!" Should have been their fist line to each other.
Great way to check out the dungeon, thanks for posting it! Just wanted to say, for anyone wondering why a module known for killing characters and even parties seems so easy --- it's because OG Tomb was made for characters level 10-14 --- and even considering you're only going with 3 people versus 4, a level 20 blows a CR 15 encounter out of the water and has way higher skills and bonuses, not to mention the magic items.
I'm not complaining, just explaining for the curious :)
I survived the tomb of horrors!
And all I got out of it was a t-shirt saying I survived the tomb of horrors.
And a life time supply of Rice-A-Roni the San Francisco treat.
Plus you made yourself look like a jerk in front of the dm
The problem with running this as a modern adventure is that this module was written as a 1st edition module and then converted to 5e. When it was written by Gary Gygax, he was almost assuredly writing it with the idea that it would be explored in the style of 1st edition, which was much more in the style of wargaming then modern D&D. What do I mean by this? In 1st edition, at this level, you are expected to have henchmen, men-at-arms, along with your party. You go in to an adventure having first hired all of the help you need. Likely you would have many hired hands or even followers with you that would be sent through first. It would also be expected that you would have consulted a sage and perhaps used legend lore spells to gain some information. While the information gained in this way would still be minimal it would be a good start. Also, you would be expected to have powerful magic items, such as scrolls of resurrection, to help you on your quest. Perhaps after consulting with a sage and learning that the dungeon is filled with secret doors, your group purchases a ring of x-ray vision to help them. As mentioned by others, the style of 1e is to challege you as a player to solve the traps and riddles rather than to challenge the character that you are role-playing as. 1st edition dungeons are also expected to be explored in small stages. You group would go in, discover a few things, come back out and rest, then return later with your aquired knowledge. The mindset expected by players is much different now then it was back then. If you were to revisit your playthrough with a small retainer of fighters and more potent magical items, it's likely you would have a much different outcome.
I like the couches everywhere. As a BBEG I too would like my death dungeon to be comfortable.
I remember when our DM put this Dungeon into his game and sent 5 level 12 Characters in there. We weren't build for any if this. But got exactly as far as this group. We got killed by the rock at the end except for one dude whose Int dropped to 1. But we decided to not keep going and just quit the campaign right then and there
Okay, for some of you younger kids. Gary designed this for use at a convention. Yes he tested it out with his player group, but it was meant to be a meat grinder where you had a line of people waiting to get a chance to play this game and yes, they all understand that when you go to a convention or at least back then you did have the expectation that the games were going to be either fluff pieces to show you the mechanics of the game or an absolute meat grinder where you try to be the last bad out and see how far your character made it that day. These were cousins to the fun house dungeon
Their voices and mannerisms at the start compared to after the 3 hour mark is amusing.
This one challenges the player rather that the character, it was also designed for a time when people would show up to with 5+ character sheets, hence all the insta death stuff.
as far as the lvl 1 thing, Spencer would have died to the poison needle trap at the start is she was lvl 1, but the point still stands, taking the saves into consideration, anything over 7 or 8 would probably be just as good as all 20
6:10 the way that Jacobs scream cuts off here just makes this so much better
first love the vid, you guys had the same despair with it like i did when i tried it.
But to be fair to some of the critique tomb of horror was made at a time when players was boasting about how strong they were and how they cleared every dungeon with easy.
Tomb of Horrors was written specifically to challenge the skill of players. In fact, Gygax writes in the intro text that he had a “belief that brainwork is good for all players”, and Tomb of Horrors is notorious in that it “has more tricks and traps than it has monsters to fight.”
Yaaasss this is literally just an old-school point and click adventure in DnD, lots of shit will randomly kill you for just messing with it but you need to mess around with stuff to find the right path. It isn't a view we have in modern "games" of any variety where if a player loses because of information they didn't have its "unfair" and "bad design" no its just not the design you've grown up with since the 90s.
I'd like to see Tomb of Horrors done as a comedy-fantasy-action movie. I bet it could be done on a pretty low budget.
I can see the sleep gas room.....
"Don't go in there! You know it's a trap. This whole damn place is one big trap!"
Actor boldly walks in and says, "Guys, I feel a little weird...." Collapses into the floor.
*Everyone else rolls their eyes and gets annoyed. Next scene is the tank character dragging the sleeping person by the collar out of the room while mumbling.
Tyler character is fireball wizard on steroids
The real mvp of this game is moose
>”create the most OP lvl 20 characters you can”
>creates a monk
>creates a barbarian
?????
Im surprised one of them didnt roll a druid
No, I agree with Barb with maximum possible HP being in, 300HP is just a meatshield of almighty proportions
@@k2cr isn't a lv 20 druid basically immortal with endless wildshapes?
@@k2cr actually I think it’s 360 cause max roles + 20 con is 17 per lever x20 340 +hill dwarf witch is +1 per level so +20 getting 360 tell me if I forgot anything.
@@ewlife3751 Apologies, maximum is 440. +7 Con from barbarian (+140), +20 from hill dwarf, +40 from durable feat, 240 from luckiest possible rolls
This was a tournament adventure meant for conventions for players with very little backgrounds but playing so they would later discuss who traveled the farthest in it. Funny thing is that most characters would leave after the gaslighted boss fight.
Well which seems to be the best thing to do, given the rest of this thing is just stupidly annoying.
The motto in the tomb of horrors is "nothing is what it seems" The fake resolution to the tomb subverts expectations in a maniacally sweet way for me as a DM. I've never presented them with a puzzle at all, we are more of the hack and slash kind of group. I feel like once they got out of the tomb and found out all of their gold to be copper. It would teach them a lesson not to mess with a demilich if they don't want to rack their brains.
@@benrowland1241 Very very good point.
2:12:00
at that point Spencer looks like she just wants to die
I felt so very bad for heeeer, i have a feeling there were two sides of the bed that night lmfao
I don't think a monk would be the most overpowered 20th level character you could make, but it really helped out when she lost her stuff because any other class would be pretty much useless
You guys may have hated this, but it was a super fun watch. Thanks for doing it :)
I loved the small room with a door part 😂
Do you guys consistently talk over Spencer's turns?
"if you find the false you find the true" references the trap door under the fake door that just opens to a wall. The poem is telling them to take the trap door. That is the hint to lead you away from the juggernaut.
For the dedication to this hell hole of a Dungeon, you got my sub lmao thank you for your effort in this lmao
Thanks everyone for doing this playthrough of The Tomb of Horrors. It's a dungeon that I never got to play in my D&D days.
Even just hearing these characters I know everyone’s about to have a great time
Oh you sweet summer child
Look, guys, the point is they aren't playing the original dungeon in the conventions with the OG creator, they are playing this one as it was released for 5e with a home group, because that's what WoTC made.
This was great background noise whilst I work. Everything moved so slow I could keep up with the total 3 rooms cleared in 3 hours.
Someone count how many natural 1s were rolled in this god forsaken game
The gimmick of this is that a level 1 will struggle with this as much as a level 20.
A level one will never complete this. They'd die almost instantly.
@@JarthenGreenmeadow well hp doesn't save you from the 7 instakills. Might have trouble from the boss monster tho
@@aetherius6221 AND THE FLYING SWORDS AND MUMMY LORD
@@gorg6151 And the gargoyle, and the grey ooze, and the green slime / brown mold.
And all of the ability checks, and all of the investigations they decided not to do putting them into precarious positions. And ability saves.
There are several things that make this dungeon the way it is.
First: It was originally created by Gary Gygax to challenge his players in his home campaign that told him over and over again that he can do nothing to them they could not survive. Gygax was pretty competetive so he just made the most lethal dungeon - the pit traps alone were much more difficult back in the day because poison meant insta-death.
Second: It was later converted into a challenge module for conventions in which you could win money and other prizes, so making it hard is a given. Also it was expected to bring like 100 backup characters so if you get the feeling character does not matter, you are right, as it literally was designed in a way to make character not matter. Then, in the conversion into a convention-module it also lost many things that made up a story behind it. Gygax once stated that there was more of a story behind it in his home game and that many things directly were conections to his players characters complete with a whole mystery of "what is a demi-lich and what are its motives?". Sadly this story is now lost to time. Also some traps were removed and relocated so the poem sometimes is a bit weird as some things now did no longer fit.
Third: Back then DM againt the player was the way to play the game. Also most monsters had not much of a backstory and it was pretty much a given that a dungeon would be a challenge that you could fight through, so back then this was a true innovation. It also is very important to understand that those dungeons had usually pretty cryptic riddles that were supposed to be thaught through by the players and not by their characters sometimes even with hints that wouldn't make sense i a d&d world (not in this module though). This was something that was created for AD&D and was pretty great back then (probably even more if one knew the story behind that - which comes down to only the Gygax Group who suffered through it in his home game).
So in the end you just HAVE to make something up around it and adjust stuff to make it fun in newer versions, also - if you take your time - you can piece together some pieces of the story that was behind that dungeon so that way you can recreate some sort of story that makes it a good experience.
- Greetings from Germany, love your vids.
And that’s when Jacob realized that he did the death room wrong. The save happens in that room not the hallway before hand. But it’s not like the book makes that supper clear so it’s forgivable.
You’ve officially convinced me to play dnd I’m sold
Wait. I just realised while reading what the "equipment stealing" portals do. You can throw your party member in while being morphed as "unliving matter" (Flesh to stone work I guess) and have them appear in the treasure room. Just make sure you have a way to dig an exit or a teleportation something.
3:17:04 Jacob’s face is a face we’ve all made at one point while playing dnd
Colton being so done is the funniest thing 😂
Keen to see the headaches!
The barbarian guy constantly talking over the other player's turns really grinds my gears
That's Colton. That's his thing. That's the reason he's my least favorite.
Other guy does it too.
Interesting party. If you got rid of the AL rules I would have went with all yuan-ti purebloods (For the immunity to poison and resistance to magic) consisting of a Level 20 inquisitive rogue, Level 20 divination wizard (for the portant ability and divination spells), and a level 20 warlock of the undying. Some helpful feats would be dungeon delver, keen mind, and observant. Proficiency with thieves tools and cartography would also be nice. I'd have the warlock use Visions of Distant Realms to begin scouting ahead and mapping out the dungeon. Ghostly Gaze, Eldritch Sight, Gaze of Two Minds, and Devil's Sight would also help. Remember to have the rogue constantly checking for traps as well as using either a spear or pole to constantly check the ground for pit traps.
As for the wizard, before entering the dungeon have the wizard use true polymorph to turn an object into a creature and maintain concentration for an hour. So long as you treated it nicely you now have either a challenge rating 9 creature or level 9 NPC to serve as an ally. (Perhaps a young silver or bronze dragon, a clay or flesh golem, a shield guardian, a werebear or weretiger, a helmed horror, etc. As for a level 9 NPC, a cleric would be good for heals or barbarian for a front line meat shield) Use this creature to walk ahead and experiment so that if it dies no one important is lost. A bit heartless and cowardly I know but this is the tomb of horrors. I would spend several in game days creating NPCs, mapping out the dungeon, detecting and dispelling magic, and experimenting with the puzzles. Remember to either use Gaze of Two Minds or telepathy to communicate with the NPCs and gain information for mapping and investigating the dungeon.
Maybe boon of high magic 3 times for 3 extra 9'th level spell slots
A lot of this would be a good idea if it weren't for the fact that originally, scrying just doesn't work in the tomb.
"I open at the close. Bing bang boom." - fellow Spencer
you are too nice to them in the multi hidden door room ! In this room I told my players when they find the hidden door panels they look like they can be manipulated from various directions and to try many combinations to see how they open. ALSO every turn in these chambers you were supposed to attack them with bolts from the ceiling..so nice you are!
The reason they died was by opening things with their hands, moving through a place without using objects to test things, and their builds could of been better. Not about ac/hp/checks/saves but testing things, since there are auto kills.
Over all this is not a test of dnd but how paranoid one could be, not fun in my book.
Yeah that's the problem it's not DnD it's a choose your own adventure book there's basically no checks the whole time so basically your character doesn't matter the player does
@@joshuawright4198 Not really, there is nothing clever about throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks... The "puzzles" in this dungeon have no clues as to what they do to figure them out... The smartest biggest brained person can't do anything with "it's a black doorway" or "there are three levers" it's all just trial and error. From what I gather from the comments this was meant to be done with expendable hirelings and slaves... Just getting them to try things to see what works or doesn't... That's not smart, your not figuring anything out, there is no skill involved.
If the dungeon had more clever traps that had more to them than "you did the arbitrary thing that you couldn't have known was bad so now your dead" then it could be good, but so much of it is just "no fuck you"...
Which is what it's meant to be, that's fine but I'm not sure why everyone holds it in such high regard. It's a fuck you deathtrap that isn't fun to play.
@@greatclubsandwich5612 Yeah I agree I was suggesting that perhaps particular players skills could come into play more because as it is your actual character doesn't matter there's no skill checks, or saves against traps basically the whole time you could turn this into a choose your adventure book and there wiyld be next to no difference
@@joshuawright4198 thats like the whole point. It's a dungeon less focused on characters and more focused on players. Bevause it was for tournament games
@@johnnygreenface Yeah I suppose it's good for that kinda thing but not really a home game
I can see the pure hell on all your faces. I had fun watching and feel bad for all of you for this game. Thanks for the episode.
On one end, I'm thinking that it doesn't take 10 minutes for them to pick up her ("his" I guess it is now) sleeping body and walk less than 100 feet and open a door. I don't think he should have rolled for the steamroller so soon. I would imagine that was about 2 or 3 minutes, and once they saw nothing in the room, they would have left before enough time had passed for the juggernaut to get the chance to come out. On the other end, I understand that they were all basically checked out mentally and he took a chance to put them out of their misery.
What do you know? I finally find the time to watch this one and it just now crosses the threshold to be the most popular video on the channel.
i really got the feeling tyler was metagaming about the orb on annihilation in the demons mouth. possibly everyone was, not blaming anyone, its pretty much the most memorable thing about the entire tomb, ive never even played dnd and i knew about it.
I think Colton(The Barb if I got his name right) got the idea perfectly
ToH might be the King of AD&D but it just doesn't translate well into 5E ESPECIALLY to newer players whom don't understand that "this is just a dead end"
Back then, the game was SOLELY dungeon crawling, but I guess people just don't get that now of days
And I feel there was an unspoken rule or an understanding that instadeath was justpart of the game
As a DM from just hearing those characters I would haved nope out of there
I am currently leading a group through the tales from the yawning portal and I am very glad i saw this. I will make a drinking game out of it. Everytime you think this is stupid/annoying and/or does not make fun/sense, you drink one.